


Gay or European?

by b4dw0lfgirl



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bisexual Character, Crack, Epic Bromance, F/M, Gay Character, Humor, Indiana Jones References, Kinda, Lesbian Character, Underage Drinking, Yoga, also jason has gay glasses, but hes really just in love with piper, everyone thinks jason is gay, i kind want to write a percabeth fic in this universe too, matchmaker!jason, rated for language, slow down maddie lets finish this one first, they swear a lot
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2018-07-16 22:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7287805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/b4dw0lfgirl/pseuds/b4dw0lfgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Piper has a crush on a gay guy,” Annabeth said. Piper opened her eyes in time to see the trademark smirk on her best friend’s face. Turning her head slightly, Piper could make out Reyna’s eyebrows raising and Hazel’s eyes widening. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>“Who, Jason?” Reyna asked, a smirk now on her face too.</em></p><p>  <em>Piper buried her face in her hands and groaned. Her headache was finally starting to go away, if only a little. </em></p><p>  <em>“My life is over.” <em></em></em></p><p> </p><p>  <strong> OR </strong></p><p> </p><p> The college AU where Piper (and everyone else) thinks Jason is gay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. That is the elephant in the room

**Author's Note:**

> Title (and chapter titles) from "There! Right There!" from Legally Blonde: The Musical

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello yes it's been 18 months since I've touched this fic, but it's been in the back of my mind for awhile, so I'm rewriting it! Hope you enjoy.

Piper woke up with her head ringing like the bells of Notre Dame. It took her a second to take in her surroundings, as she had never seen underneath the couch before (it was, as to be expected from four college students, littered with dust bunnies and old beer cans). She tried sitting up, but her stomach was ready to fight a battle it could not win. 

“Good afternoon,” said a chirpy voice. It took Piper a minute to recognize it as Annabeth’s. 

“Uuuuggnnnnnghhh.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

This time, Annabeth came over and helped Piper into one of the chairs surrounding their kitchen table. She also produced an ice water that Piper sipped from meekly. 

“Damn, girl. What happened to you?” Reyna essentially shouted as she walked out of her room. Piper just groaned in response. 

“Did you really drink that much?”

Piper shrugged. “It’s a blur.”

“What do you remember?” Piper looked up, confused. She jumped about a foot when she saw Hazel sitting across from her.

“When’d you get here?”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” Hazel sighed. 

Piper shook her head in disbelief (big mistake). “I remember we were...at Percy’s place, yeah?” She kept going when she saw Annabeth’s encouraging nodding. “And you two were being disgusting, as per usual. So I tried talking to...Nico. But he hates me for some unknown reason.”

“Don’t take it personal, he hates everyone,” Hazel frowned. 

“Oh! That’s it!”

“What?”

  


_After Nico walked away, Piper stared at the spot he had been, dejected._

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_“I just want to be friends. How is it this hard?”_

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_“Don’t beat yourself up, he’s like that around everyone.”_

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_In Nico’s place slipped a boy. He had blonde hair brushed into a quiff, the brightest blue eyes, round glasses, and a friendly smile._

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_“Hi,” Piper breathed. She felt like she had the wind knocked out of her by this man’s sheer beauty._

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_“Hi, I’m Jason,” he reached out his hand for her to shake. His arm was covered in bracelets; some looked like poorly-made friendship bracelets, while others were rubber adorning the names of bands._

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_“Piper,” she said, finally remembering herself and shaking his hand._

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_“Ooooh, you’re Piper.”_

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_“What?”_

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_“You just transferred from Santa Barbara, right?”_

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_“How’d you know?”_

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_“Annabeth has been talking about you nonstop. She’s really glad you two are together again.”_

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_“Yeah,” she laughed, “Last year was the longest we’d been apart. We’ve been friends since we were like, seven, when she moved to Cali.”_

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_“New York’s a bit of a change from that, huh?”_

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_“No kidding. Where’d you grow up?”_

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_“In the city. My mom was an aspiring actress, and she didn’t want my sister and me to move to far away from our Dad. Not like we ever saw him, anyway.”_

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_“Oh,” Piper said. Jason was very open about his feelings. She would be lying if she said that didn’t turn her on a little (or a lot)._

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_“Sorry, I don’t mean to dump that on you. Once I’m two beers in, my mouth has a mind of its own.”_

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_“No, I like it,” Piper smiled, shyly tucking a piece of hair behind her ear._

_  
_

“I don’t get it,” Reyna said, “What does Jason have to do with you almost getting alcohol poisoning?”

Piper pointed to Annabeth. She needed more Advil before she could talk again. 

“When Drunk Piper tries to impress a guy, she does it by out-drinking everyone. Like that one scene from _Raiders of the Lost Ark_. Good movie, not historically accurate at all.”

“Except Mariona Ravenwood did it because she’s badass, not because she wanted to impress a guy,” Reyna added. 

“Hey!” said Piper, attempting to defend her honor. But she immediately realized it was a losing battle and laid her pounding head in her arms. 

“And, yet, she still got the guy,” Hazel said.

“Nevertheless, this is bad news,” Annabeth interrupted what was turning into a heated discussion about Indiana Jones. 

“Please explain to me how.”

“Because you have a crush on a gay guy.” Piper opened her eyes in time to see the trademark smirk on her best friend’s face. Turning her head slightly, Piper could make out Reyna’s eyebrows raising and Hazel’s eyes widening.

“Who, Jason?” Reyna asked, a smirk now on her face too.

Piper buried her face in her hands and groaned. Her headache was finally starting to go away, if only a little.

“My life is over.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jason was just trying to pass his damn class. It was a Literature class, which he normally enjoyed, but poems were not his strong suit. 

During the lecture, the professor was using words Jason didn’t understand, like “caesura” and “abecedarian” and even “zeugma.” It didn’t help that the guy sitting next to him was scribbling everything down, only stopping to nod occasionally or highlight a line. 

After what felt like a month, the professor finally asked “Any questions?” Jason was in the process of raising his hand when she said “Good. You know my office hours,” and walked out. 

Jason sat there for a few seconds, still trying to process what happened. 

Someone lightly tapped him on the shoulder. “Hey, you good?”

Jason turned around, slightly annoyed to see his genius classmate looking concerned. But he pushed that away in favor of a more positive attitude. 

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Just confused by the lecture.”

“Tell me about it,” he said. Jason looked back at him, even more confused. 

“Really? You were writing everything down.”

“Yeah, I’m going to try to decipher it later with the help of my good friend, Google.”

“Maybe we should study together,” Jason proposed. This guy seemed nice, and Jason liked making new friends, as cheesy as that sounds. 

“Sure. Between the two of us we could probably figure it out.”

Jason pulled out his phone and handed it to the stranger to put his number in. The contact name said “Will Solace” with a little winky face. Jason quickly punched in his number into a new contact on Will’s phone. 

“I’ll text you,” Jason said, shoving papers into his backpack. He would (not) organize them later. “I’m late for yoga.” 

Yoga always helped Jason relax. The room was warm, he could wear stretchy clothes, and he always felt a million times better afterwards. 

Breathe, stretch, relax. Breathe, stretch, relax. Thalia was tease him so badly if she ever found out about yoga. Breathe, stretch, relax. Good thing he swore Percy to secrecy. Breathe, stretch, relax. It had been awhile since he talked to Thalia. Breathe, stretch, relax. Last he heard, she was opening up a tattoo parlor. Breathe, stretch, relax. She also gave up her phone as some way to protest society’s reliance on technology. Breathe, stretch, relax. Jason wondered how that would work with a budding new business. Breathe, stretch, relax, breathe, stretch, relax.

Eventually, Jason’s thoughts drifted to Piper. Breathe, stretch, relax. He found that his thoughts often went to her and her kaleidoscope eyes. Breathe, stretch, relax. She was, hands down, the most beautiful person he’d ever seen. Breathe, stretch, relax. The problem is, being around her made him nervous. Breathe, stretch, relax. And when he was nervous he talked. Breathe, stretch, relax. A lot. Breathe, stretch, relax. He was terrified that already her scared her off with his Tragic Backstory™. Breathe, stretch, relax. But they had a nice, long conversation. Breathe, stretch, relax. She made Jason laugh. Breathe, stretch, relax. Also, she could hold her liquor like nobody’s business. Breathe, stretch, relax. That was quite the opposite of Jason, who was useless after about four drinks. Breathe, stretch, relax. Jason kept thinking about the wild look in Piper’s eyes when she winked at him, then downed five shots of Tequila. Breathe, stretch, relax. 

Before Jason’s thoughts were nearly worked out, a class started filing in. Jason rolled up his mat and left the room, not wanting to hear an instructor gave distracting beginner’s lessons. 

Jason hopped on his bike and zoned out as he navigated the familiar route to his apartment off-campus. He shared the apartment with Percy, Nico, and Frank, since none of them could afford it on their own. 

Percy and Jason had decided to get an apartment together ever since they met as Freshman. They were on the same floor, so they shared a common space. They had met at 5 am in there. Percy had books strewn about him, and about twelve discarded coffee mugs. Jason wondered why he didn’t just reuse some of them. Jason was preparing for his morning run. 

Jason was not a morning person. He specifically got up at the crack of dawn so he didn’t have to deal with people for at least five hours, which is when his morning class started. So Jason was not happy to see another person. But Percy offered him a cup of his mom’s secret recipe coffee, and it was so good that it immediately cured his crankiness. Then, Percy made some dumb, not funny joke in his late sleep-deprived state, and Jason laughed, party to be nice, partly because he wanted to thank him for the coffee in some way, and partly because he found the joke funny in his early sleep-deprived state. 

Nico had met them when they were all Sophomores. Percy had seen him sitting alone under tree, eating lunch. Percy had immediately grabbed Jason and they joined him. Nico glared at them and continued reading his book. It was in Latin so Jason couldn’t read the title (after that, Jason had made it a personal goal to learn Latin just so he could know was Nico was reading, since he kept it so secretive. Jason had not succeeded thus far). But by the end of the conversation Nico was smiling at Percy and Jason’s dumb jokes and self-proclaimed bromance. Eventually, they wore him down enough to become friends. 

Frank was the newest addition to the group. The other three desperately needed another roommate to pay rent. They put up a few flyers around campus, and Frank was one of the few who responded. He seemed very nervous during the interview, which was odd because he was very muscly and huge and Nico, Percy, and Jason were scared of him. At first, though, he seemed to avoid all of them, working during the day and taking classes in the evening. He would never hang out with them, only with his other friends. But one day Jason, Percy, and Nico were playing monopoly, drunk, at 1 am when Frank came in. Jason asked him (yelled, practically) if he wanted to play. Frank declined, not wanting to be a bother. But Percy upended the board, saying they had to start over anyway. Nico flicked Percy’s head, upset because he had been winning. Frank agreed to join, and the game had ended in his crushing all of them, much to Nico’s chagrin. Frank had joined them more often after that, although it usually took some pushing. 

Jason hadn’t even noticed that he was at his front door. His neighbor from the opposite side of the landing stuck out her head. 

“Are you okay, dear?” She tucked a few blonde strands of hair out of her face. She was the image of a stereotypical hippie, with a giant peace sign necklace, an ugly tie died shirt, and acid wash jeans.

Jason nodded, embarrassed, and opened his own door to get away from her uncharacteristically unsettling gaze. He closed the door quickly. 

But when Jason looked at the apartment, he nearly burst out laughing. Percy was standing on the table (crouched slightly because of the low ceilings), shirtless, singing “Call Me Maybe” into a hairbrush at the top of his lungs. 

Jason nearly fell over from laughing so hard. Percy stopped singing, instead pulling out his pouting face. Carly Rae Jepsen continued screeching through Percy’s phone speakers. 

“What’s so funny?”

“I–” Jason couldn’t get through even that without bending over in laughter once more. 

“Well,” Percy scoffed, “I’m sorry for expressing myself.”

“I didn’t even know you owned a hairbrush,” Jason managed to get out while still laughing. 

“I don’t,” he admitted, finally turning off the music. “I stole it from Annabeth’s.”

“Oh yeah, how’d your date go? You didn’t come home last night.”

Percy wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, “You bet I didn’t.”

“Ew,” Jason said. Percy responded by wiggling his butt. Jason just calmly walked over to the couch and threw a pillow at him. They’re called throw pillows for a reason, right?

This sparked the pillow fight of a century. Percy threw the pillow back at Jason. Jason then grabbed as many pillows as he could hold (around eight) and spun around like a top, hitting Percy repeatedly. Percy ran over, grabbed the entire couch cushion and tackled Jason, practically smothering. However, the pillow fight ended abruptly when one of the pillows tore, spreading goose feathers everywhere. Percy jumped down on the ground to make “snow” angels, and Jason laughed, laying on the cushion-less pillow. 

There were a few minutes of silence before Jason spoke. He felt weirdly nervous to say anything. 

“So, what’s the deal with Piper?” Jason asked, trying to sound nonchalant. 

“What do you mean?”

“How come I’ve never met her before?”

“You haven’t?” Percy asked, sitting up. 

Jason shook his head.

“Oh, well, she’s a transfer this year. A good friend of Annabeth’s from California.”

“And?”

“Well she’s just about the nicest person you could meet, aside from Hazel, but watch out if you get on her bad side. Apparently, she once beat up a guy for catcalling her. Not sure violence is always the answer, but it served its purpose. And, he didn’t press charges.”

“Damn.”

“No kidding. When I met Annabeth’s family over the summer, she introduced us. She was all smiles until Annabeth went to the bathroom. She threatened me and nearly broke my clavicle. I’ve never been more scared in my life.”

“Do you know if she’s single?”

“Does someone have a cruuuuush?”

“What? No, don’t be dumb. I just wanted to know, just- just curious. I’m doing a survey,” Jason said, entirely unconvincingly. 

Just then, Nico walked in the door. He took one look at the mess Jason and Percy had made, and sighed. 

“Hey, hey Nico?” Jason asked, trying to shift the attention away from his dumb crush. “Are you dating anyone?”

Nico just stared at him, said, “You two are cleaning this up,” and went into his room. 

“See? I’m doing a survey,” Jason turned to Percy. “You are a ‘no’ to single, Nico is a yes, and Piper is?”

“A ‘yes,’” Percy said, giving Jason an amused look that showed he saw right through Jason’s excuse. Jason ignored it.


End file.
